Conventionally, animal waste is removed from an animal litter box (e.g. a cat litter box) using an animal litter scoop. These scoops are used to remove waste products or other debris from an animal's litter box regularly, to ensure a clean environment for the animal and to minimize waste odors. The scoops, used to sift through litter to collect animal waste, often become covered with litter, dust, and animal waste. Such contaminated waste removal scoops are very unsanitary, to both the user and the animal, not to mention being very unsightly when left exposed—typically adjacent to the litter box. Users of conventional animal litter boxes find it difficult to locate places to discretely store a scoop in a convenient location near the litter box. Conventional litter boxes have a very basic unitary, or one-piece, plastic molded pan-like structure comprised of a flat, or planar, bottom/base with a contiguous upwardly-extending peripheral sidewall (e.g. a rectangular base having four adjoining vertical side walls). Consequently, users' options are generally limited to either washing/cleaning the scoop after each use, or simply living with the odor emanating from the exposed unclean scoop.
Placing the scooper on the floor surface alongside the litter box is not only an eyesore, but remnants left attached to the scoop basket often detach and drop to the floor, which is very unsanitary. Furthermore, with regard to cat litter boxes, it is not uncommon for cats to urinate upon an exposed litter scoop. Hanging the scooper on a hook outside of the litter box is not an acceptable approach since it is also an eyesore, emits an undesirable odor, results in unsanitary waste and litter falling to the underlying floor, and leaves the scooper accessible to the cat (or other animal). Placing the scooper in the litter box main area with the basket buried in the litter to support the scooper in an orientation with the handle extending upward (or in a separate area divided by a wall, or similar structure, from the main litter box area suffers from many of the same issues (e.g. accessible to the animal, enabling the scooper to be compromised by the animal).
One known approach to addressing this issue is through the use of disposable litter scoops. However, when users simply throw the scoops away instead of cleaning them, they incur the cost of a replacement scoop. Some litter boxes consist of both a litter pan and a lid covering the pan, wherein the lid typically includes a relatively large opening through which the animal is able to enter and exit the litter box. In such cases, the litter scoop could be retained within the interior space formed by the lid-covered pan; however, this still leaves the scoop in an exposed position where it is accessible to the animal. Furthermore, even if the scoop was retained within the interior space in a manner preventing such undesirable contact with the animal, this would not solve the problem of foul odors from the scoop escaping through the litter box entry/exit opening. Furthermore, this would also make user-access to the scoop very inconvenient.
In light of the aforementioned drawbacks, disadvantages and limitations associated with known animal litter boxes, it would be highly desirable to provide an animal litter box apparatus, including a litter box main body incorporating means for temporarily engaging and retaining a corresponding litter scoop, when the scoop is not being used, such that the entire scoop remains discreetly stored out-of-view, and wherein the basket portion of the scoop is contained within an interior structure of the litter box such that odor emitted from the basket is correspondingly contained, thereby minimizing the egress of any such odors beyond the interior area, and further ensuring that any undesirable remnants or remains detaching from the basket portion fall back into the interior of the litter box.
It would be even more desirable to provide such an animal litter box apparatus wherein, when the litter scoop is in a stored position, a handle portion of litter scoop is discreetly retained exteriorly of the litter box, and wherein the interior structure for containing the basket portion of the scoop could be easily selectively accessed by a user when removing the scoop during use and when returning the scoop for storage in between uses.